White House Presses Senate G.O.P. on Arms Treaty

Friday

Jul 23, 2010 at 5:09 AM

The Obama administration pushes for the ratification of a new arms control treaty with Russia before fall election campaigns intensify partisan divisions.

PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — With time running out for major votes before the November election, the White House is trying to reach an understanding with Senate Republicans to approve its new arms control treaty with Russia by committing to modernizing the nuclear arsenal and making additional guarantees about missile defense.

The White House pressed allies in Congress in recent days to approve billions of dollars for the nation’s current nuclear weapons and infrastructure even as administration and Congressional officials work on a ratification resolution intended to reaffirm that the treaty will not stop American missile defense plans.

The effort to forge a genuine bipartisan coalition contrasts with most of President Obama’s legislative drives in the past year because a treaty requires a two-thirds vote, meaning that the president needs at least eight Republicans. White House officials are optimistic that they can reach an agreement that will attract enough Republicans but are racing against the calendar because the closer it gets to the election, the more partisan the debate may become.

At stake is perhaps Mr. Obama’s most tangible foreign policy achievement, a treaty that bars the United States and Russia from deploying more than 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 launchers. If the president fails to get the New Start treaty ratified, it will undercut his effort to rebuild the relationship with Moscow and his broader arms control agenda.

The critical player is Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, who has criticized the treaty but also signaled that his reservations could be assuaged. In particular, he has sought to modernize the nuclear force, and the administration has proposed spending more than $100 billion over 10 years to sustain and modernize some strategic systems.

“I’ve told the administration it would be much easier to do the treaty right than to do it fast if they want to get it ratified,” Mr. Kyl said Thursday in an interview. “It’s not a matter of delay,” he added, but “until I’m satisfied about some of these things, I will not be willing to allow the treaty to come up.”

Mr. Kyl sounded hopeful that he could reach agreement, ticking off three ways the White House could assure him that the proposed nuclear modernization program would be adequate: ensure enough first-year money in the next round of appropriations bills, include enough second-year money in a follow-up budget proposal and revise the long-range modernization plan to anticipate additional costs in later years.

“I’m not questioning the administration’s commitment to this,” he said, “but this is a big deal, and it needs to have everybody’s commitment to it at takeoff, and I really don’t see that the groundwork has really been laid.”

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has met with Mr. Kyl once and invited him and other senators to talk about the treaty again next week. Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has likewise been talking with Mr. Kyl regularly and is trying to help resolve Republican demands to inspect at least some of the secret negotiating record.

“If they get Kyl, it’s over,” said Samuel Charap, an analyst at the Center for American Progress, a research organization close to Mr. Obama. “He carries a lot of weight, and he has made himself such a hard get that if they get him, it will be a big deal. But the question is, are they willing to pay the price he’s asking in light of what they want to do in the future?”

So far, administration officials say they are willing to pay that price because they are also committed to modernization. With Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Foreign Relations Committee’s ranking Republican, already supporting the treaty, Democrats hope they can win the votes of other Republicans on the committee like Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and Johnny Isakson of Georgia.

“We certainly would like to support Start,” Mr. Corker said in an interview. “The crux of what’s happening right now for folks like me that would like to support the Start treaty is really ensuring that we have an appropriate and thoughtful modernization program.”

While he said the current plan was still too vague, he added, “I really think there’s a good opportunity to have a good outcome here.”

But Baker Spring, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation and a treaty critic, said Republicans were not simply bargaining for the best deal. “Either the administration meets the admittedly varied goals of the New Start skeptics or they will vote against it,” he said.

The White House is working closely with Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lugar as they draft a joint resolution of ratification that could include language intended to reaffirm that the treaty does not impose any meaningful restriction on American missile defense plans.

To reassure Republicans, Mr. Biden also lobbied lawmakers to approve the first-year expense of the modernization program. A Senate committee supported the administration’s spending request on Thursday, but last week a House subcommittee cut it back by $99 million, angering Republicans. Democrats want to offset that with $80 million in unspent money from other programs.

Mr. Kerry has said he wants his committee to vote on the treaty before the Senate leaves town for summer recess, possibly Aug. 3 or 4. That would mean a fall floor debate in the midst of the campaign or perhaps during a postelection lame duck session.

“We’re at a very delicate juncture now,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group. “We’ve only got a certain number of weeks left before the November election.”

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